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06.02.15 Migratory Creatures

“My relatives were nomads. Not nomads of the steppes, herders of reindeer and jackass, but city-dwelling nomads, migrants from city to city, from country to country. They belonged to the tribes which preferred breeding livestock to planting seeds, the high seas to the craftsman’s workbench; the tribes whose members are still resisting, with varying success, the advances of the eight-hour work day, modern production methods and the regulation and regimentation of international travel. They chose vocations (some of them simple, others complicated and hazardous) which did not interfere with their habit of roaming all over the three hundred and sixty degrees of the compass. They were migratory creatures, generally held in contempt, and not infrequently cursed, to whom the world, envious of their freedom, gradually bars all roads.”